Track and field beckons

At a distance the six-foot Olympic flame looks like nothing more than the sort of thing that burns off waste gas at a decaying steel works.

Not surprising, really. Like London's Dome, Sydney's Olympic Park was built on a toxic waste site, and probably the only ecological trick organisers missed was the chance to fuel the flame from the gases presumably still fermenting below the foundations of Stadium Australia, the Sydney Super Dome, and the swimming, hockey and baseball facilities dotted around them like the stars on the Australian flag.

But close up, the flame is doing its job of providing a symbolic focus for the games, acting as a beacon for the tens of thousands who come each day.

The happy atmosphere within Olympic Park is a sign of Sydney's success in its first week of hosting the games. Visitors travel to this purpose-built facility 10 miles from the city centre as they would to Alton Towers. It is a Disneyland of sport. Critics say it feels homogenised but this is the way sport is going and few in the crowd are complaining that the transportation system works perfectly.

So far, the most outstanding feature of the competition has been the grown-up behaviour of winners and losers alike. There have been tears but few tantrums. There have been displays of lonely stoicism but little selfishness.

But the atmosphere will change at the weekend and the temperature will rise as the focus switches from the pool, the gym floor and the velodrome to the oven of the athletics stadium. There we will be meeting the prima donnas - Marie-Jose Pérec, who has been preparing for her meeting with Freeman in the 400 metres by staying out of the public eye, and the 40-year-old Merlene Ottey, who has exercised a queen's prerogative by ousting the winner of the Jamaican trials in order to leave the arena with the memory of something more than a questionable reprieve from a positive nandrolone test.

We shall see whether Dwain Chambers can mount a challenge to Maurice Greene and Ato Boldon in the men's 100m, whether anyone can stay within hailing distance of Michael Johnson in the 400m, and who will fill the vacuum left by the failure of Greene and Johnson to come through the US trials in the 200m. Hicham el Guerrouj, who has a powerful sense of history, will hope to become the first man since Herb Elliott of Australia in 1960 to break the world 1500m record at an Olympic Games.

The British will be absorbed by the struggles of Paula Ratcliffe, Jonathan Edwards, Steve Backley, Colin Jackson and Denise Lewis.

All that and Felix Savon of Cuba in the boxing, Lance Armstrong of the US in the cycling road events, Britain's Ben Ainslie in the sailing, and the return of Fu Mingxia, China's high-diving startlet of Barcelona, to come - not to mention the synchronised swimmers and the rhythmic gymnasts.

In another way, too, the Australians have risen above the standards set by the International Olympic Committee. Sydney has virtually banished the event that defined Atlanta - the sport of shopping. The sale of Olympic-branded merchandise has been removed from its position at the centre of the games and put where it belongs, in a vast covered supermarket.

If there are ticket touts, they are plying their trade with singular discretion, probably on the internet. The flaunting of sponsors' brands has been kept to a minimum.

The IOC's line is that without its commercial partners "there would be no dream, there would be no games". Sydney has seen this lie for what it is, and has responded by producing a games full of fun and dignity, a games worthy of its athletes.

For a full version of the text, see tomorrow's Guardian